


Time and Tide

by TheosOxonian



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 12:40:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11714589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheosOxonian/pseuds/TheosOxonian
Summary: Inspired by the line “Individuality is fine, as long as we all do it together.”On cold Korean nights Trapper muses on Hawkeye and their relationship.





	Time and Tide

**Author's Note:**

> So another little snippet written for my friend and beta who gave a prompt based on Frank's quote about individuality from the episode "George“.

The days in Korea are something like the seventh circle of hell. But there are some nights that feel more like the eighth or the ninth. Long, endless hours when they’re too tired to sleep, or simply too devastated by the carnage to dare close their eyes, to dim the world and face the solitary darkness within. When even Hawkeye’s tongue is silent, and distractions are an effort too far, and reaching for another drink is all too easy.

He and Hawk keep a strange, silent sort of company through those hours. Eyes meeting occasionally in the dim light, taking what comfort they can from a distance. Wearily, wordlessly damning all that keeps them apart: the army and the cold and the necessary layers of clothes. 

Yet there’s something to be found in the hushed hours, something peaceable in their private thoughts. In the quiet he thinks on Hawkeye and all that they are, and all that they’re not. He remembers the heat of gin laced lips and the eagerness of fumbling fingers. Aches at the memory of the loneliness that looks out from sober, morning eyes, and wonders if he’ll ever be able to ease that solemn gaze. The one that sees the reality of two separate lives, of careers and kids and the wife they don’t mention.

Some nights he simply watches Hawkeye sleep, oddly startled by the stillness that overtakes the lithe, livewire limbs. He ponders how Hawkeye came to be; how his blue eyed, sleek haired, silver tongued lover sprang from a small coastal town, with its pool hall and pastors and picture-postcard serenity. 

Frank likes to say that he was raised by wolves, without civilised manners and with only animal appetites. But he thinks it’s more that he was raised by the land itself; that left to roam among rock pools and to race barefoot on damp, tide lapped sands something boundless and untamed took root. 

Something that leaves him meandering and ranging through life. Like the Maine coastline itself, full of calm creeks and hidden harbours and jagged rocks. Never straightforward nor easy to navigate, but rugged and surprising and so utterly, perfectly beautiful. Something that feels a lot like spring tide, all too prone to run wild, to dash against rocks and break into a thousand drops. Only to gather again, and run once more at the shore, until without you noticing how it’s eroded every defence you ever had.

If Hawk is like the ocean, then the rest of them are more like streams; contained and conventional and rolling along their set courses. For all he dislikes Frank, he can’t help but acknowledge there’s something in the man he recognises. Something in his love of conformity and his need for the safety of a navigable channel. To never stray beyond the bounds of the riverbanks, to be an individual only along with everyone else. Afraid of transgression and judgement, of breaching those bounds and running untamed and free. 

But in the cloying heat of Tokyo hotel rooms being with Hawkeye is like the drag of a riptide ride. When he’s swirled and swamped and his heart races and sings with the heady, terrifying rush of need. When the hunger he sees reflected in Hawk’s eyes make him dive in again and again, until lungs are desperate for air and there’s no way back to the safety of land. When he’d willingly drown for just another taste of that salty, sweat slicked skin.

Yet for all that Hawk is a force of nature, their friendship feels like a summer evening on the dockside, bare feet trailing into gently stroking water and the setting sun on his skin; warm, and gentle and so utterly serene. Hawkeye centres and calms him, and fills him like nothing else he’s ever found, and within that contentment he feels the sands around him shifting as his river gradually changes course. 

He knows that the man he’s become can’t ever be the man he was. That the mud and the mire, and the things he’s seen and the things he’s done in this place have shattered the security of his suburban life. That he’s already begun to carve out his own section of craggy coastline, something with inlets and bays and sheltered coves. Someplace where he and Hawk can flow and mingle together. Where the love they’ve found can be darker and deeper than time, and as wide and vast as the ocean.


End file.
